The story behind hing, one of India’s most divisive ingredients

(CNN) — An appetizer or an abhorrent? A medicine or a pesticide?

Asafoetida sounds innocent enough — it’s a wild fennel plant native to Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan.

The resin from its roots is used in Indian cooking — usually after it’s ground into powder and mixed with flour. To say it has a powerful smell would be an understatement. In fact, its scent is so pungent it might just be the most divisive ingredient in the country.

‘Asa’ means gum in Persian, and ‘foetida’ means stinky in Latin. But in India, it’s just called hing.

If you accidentally get hing on your hands, it lingers no matter how many times you wash them. Put an unadulterated pinch on your tongue, and your mouth will start burning.

At the Khari Baoli market in old Delhi, for instance, hing even manages to ‘out-smell’ all the other spices.

“It bridged the gap of flavors of onion and garlic that were prohibited due to religious beliefs in the largely vegetarian Indian communities such as Jain, Marwari and Gujarati. Despite the culinary diversity of India, hing is a constant.”

Jains, for example, eschew onion, garlic and ginger in addition to not eating meat.

But a small amount goes a long way. Talwar advises that you put a miniscule amount of hing into hot oil.

Most people buy a powdered version that is mixed in with rice or wheat flour. However, more adventurous cooks will buy the solid crystal form, which looks like rock salt.

The history of hing

Some scholars credit Alexander the Great for first bringing hing to India.

“The popular theory is that Alexander’s army encountered asafoetida in the Hindu Kush mountains and mistook it for the rare silphium plant, which has similar characteristics to asafoetida,” explains culinary historian Dr. Ashish Chopra.

“They painstakingly carried the plant with them to India … only to find out later that it wasn’t what they (expected). Nevertheless, Indians have had their encounter with hing now; it came, it saw, and it stayed.”

The professor adds that hing was used in some Greco-Roman cooking but didn’t last long. These days, it’s mostly absent from Western food, with one notable exception: Worcestershire sauce.

But as global food patterns and appetites…